[SOLVED] Where to find system logs?

hotspot · 01-27-2009, 09:32 AM

Hi,

Is there exist any linux OS logs, that could be useful for me while finding out what went wrong on software process level, what is/went wrong on the OS drivers level, especially regarding the network drivers, and so on.

The reason for this question is that I am running a Java application inside Tomcat, and there are some problems I experience from time to time, like JVM processes or threads hangs/freezes, JVM process abnormal terminations and others.

The command cat /proc/version returned following result:
Linux version 2.6.9-42.ELsmp (bhcompile@hs20-bc1-1.build.redhat.com) (gcc version 3.4.6 20060404 (Red Hat 3.4.6-2)) #1 SMP Wed Jul 12 23:27:17 EDT 2006
So I guess it is Red Hat system I am talking about (yes, this is remote third-party server with limited information and access right for me, but I can requested the needed logs).

colucix · 01-27-2009, 09:47 AM

They should be all in /var/log. If you don't have root privileges you cannot read their content on a Red Hat system. Anyway, as soon as an error comes out you can do a list of the files in /var/log sorted by time, so you can see which is the last modified log file and do a specific request to the administrator:

Code:

ls -lrt /var/log

form this command the file at the bottom of the list has the most recent modification time. If there is some error message, most likely it will be in it.

onebuck · 01-27-2009, 03:38 PM

Hi,

As stated you can look at '/var/log' to get logged messages. You can look at the kernel ring buffer with 'dmesg'. This can be very helpful while diagnosing problems.

Code:

sample;

# ls /var/log
Xorg.0.log      cron.1   debug.3  maillog.1   messages.4         secure     spooler.2  uucp/
Xorg.0.log.old  cron.2   debug.4  maillog.2   nfsd/              secure.1   spooler.3  wtmp
Xorg.1.log      cron.3   dmesg    maillog.3   packages/          secure.2   spooler.4  wtmp.1
Xorg.1.log.old  cron.4   faillog  maillog.4   removed_packages/  secure.3   syslog
acpid           cups/    httpd/   messages    removed_scripts/   secure.4   syslog.1
btmp            debug    iptraf/  messages.1  sa/                setup/     syslog.2
btmp.1          debug.1  lastlog  messages.2  samba/             spooler    syslog.3
cron            debug.2  maillog  messages.3  scripts/           spooler.1  syslog.4

palisetty_suman · 02-22-2009, 06:42 PM

Hi first of all to see the log messages u have to be the root.

then type command

cd /var/log

then u will be shown the output as in the one sir shown.

Then to see the output of particular service u have to use cat

eg: cat messages ..etc

All the Best.

gergely89 · 02-22-2009, 08:31 PM

I am not sure if a Java application inside Tomcat will provide enough information into the /var/log located log-files, at least not for proper debugging. You also have to consider that for lengthy operations (I don't know what your Java app is doing) time-outs can occur. Web servers, especially on mass-hosting installments, are likely to kill slave processes after some amount of time.

linux

hotspot · 04-26-2019, 06:07 PM

Thank you all for your help!